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From
Khalid Amayreh in Hebron
A
Palestinian lawmaker recently released from Israeli
captivity has accused Israel of “adopting Nazi tactics” and
applying them to Palestinian prisoners.
Bassem
al, Za’arir, 45, who lives in the town of Sammou, south
west of Hebron, won a seat in the Palestinian Legislative
Council elections in the January, 2006.
However, a few months later , Za’arir and dozens of other
Islamic-oriented lawmakers, cabinet ministers, mayors and
other elected officials, were violently abducted by
undercover Israeli soldiers as part of a sweeping crackdown
on Hamas supporters and sympathizers.
Israel
said the abductions were in response to the capture by
Palestinian freedom fighters of an Israeli occupation army
soldier. However, Hamas maintains that Jewish enmity to
Islam was the main motive behind the widespread crackdown
which also witnessed the arrest of thousands of suspected
Islamic activists as well as the closure and confiscation of
numerous Islamic charitable and educational institutions.
Farcical justice system
Al-Za’arir described his 24-month detention as “an extended
ordeal.”
“If my
case had been handled by any other court in this wide
world, I wouldn’t have stayed in jail for a single day. But
Israel and Justice are a scandalous oxymoron, and I think
the Israelis themselves are aware of this disgrace.”
The
Palestinian lawmaker said the Israeli military attorney at
one point mistook him for another person and wanted to
punish for violations carried out by someone else.
“I
don’t know how to describe the Israeli court system. Imagine
they wanted to indict me for statements made on al-Jazeera
TV by (Hamas’ Gaza leader) Mahmoud al Zahhar, as if I were
responsible for every word uttered by people and leaders
Israel doesn’t like.”
Al-Za’arir said he thought the main reason behind the
collective incarceration of dozens of lawmakers, mayors and
cabinet ministers was “to punish the Palestinian people for
electing these people.”
“Their
message was very clear, that we are above you and above your
national will, and that Israel and Israel alone has the
final say and that it is Israel, not the Palestinian people,
who decides who represents the Palestinians.”
Al-Za’arir said the charges filed against nearly all the
abductees were strikingly similar.
“I
was charged with membership in an anti-Israeli organization
and with acting against the interests of Israel and posing
a threat to the safety and security of the region where we
live.”
He
described the charges as “concocted, vague and
disingenuous.”
“When
I told the judge that I participated in an election which
the Israeli government had approved and that if
participation in the election was indeed against the law,
Israel should have made it clear beforehand that anyone
participating in the elections would be arrested.
“However, the attorney-general of the Israeli army argued
that the Israeli government had the right to change its mind
retrospectively. Then they told us that we were being
arrested as a reprisal for the capture of (Gilad) Shalit.”
Rampant maltreatment
Al-Za’arir called the treatment meted out to Palestinian
prisoners as “essentially barbaric.”
“They
treat us very much like the Nazis treated Jews during WWII.
Yes, there are no gas chambers, but the mentality, the
vindictiveness and the virulent hostility is the same.
“The
way they treat Palestinian prisoners is designed to
humiliate, to insult, to torment, to inflict as much
emotional and psychological pain as possible.”
He
cited, as an example, the naked searches the prisoners are
subjected to from time to time.
He
pointed out that even Aziz Duweik, Speaker of the
Palestinian Legislative Council, was put in fetters as if he
were a dangerous criminal.
Duweik, an American-educated professor of Urbane Planning,
was violently abducted from his home in Ramallah nearly 20
months ago.
His
home was also vandalized and ransacked by Israeli troops.
“There
is no justice or decency or civility in the Israeli justice
system as far as non-Jews in general and Palestinians in
particular are concerned.
“Yes,
they do treat their own people (Jews) according to the law,
but the rule of law ends when Palestinian rights begin. We
are outside the protection of the law, our lives and rights
depend almost completely on the whims and moods of the Shin
Beth (Israel’s chief domestic intelligence agency)”
The
Palestinian MP castigated the “death ride” torture technique
whereby prisoners are made to travel hundreds of kilometers
throughout Israel while confined in an oven-like metal
chamber fixed on a car.
“Imagine languishing in such a filthy chamber in high
temperature and with very little oxygen for up to 24 hours.
It is a real ordeal.”
Israel
currently holds as many as 12000 Palestinian political and
resistance prisoners, many of whom without charge or trial.
Many
of the detainees are professionals such as college
professors, doctors, school teachers, and journalists who
were arrested for their non-violent opposition to the
Israeli occupation.
In
recent years, Israel stepped up the so-called administrative
detention whereby a given Palestinian political activist or
critic of the Israeli occupation is imprisoned for up to 9
years without charge or trial. |
